Preparing for Commercial Auditions with the Meisner Technique

Actors trained in the Meisner technique are some of the best equipped students to enter commercial acting auditions. Here’s why. Meisner students work all the time. Not just for the few hours a week they may be in class but, daily, hourly.

By studying the people around them, taking notice of both every day and more intense circumstances Meisner actors can take in and use what they have “recorded.” Then they use this recollected information and the power of their imagination to develop characters with full blown sets of life circumstances.

Because the world of commercial acting is so fast-paced, everything is ramped up. Obviously commercials have a very limited time frame and the sooner an actor can access a “real” character to play in the commercial the better off they will be.

Meisner students are also trained to react and play off of the other characters they are working with. This serves them well in commercial work as well. In other cases, they may be the only character and the “person” they need to play off of is the camera. This is the kind of additional training that can be helpful when pursuing commercial work.

Improvisation is another skill that many acting coaches recommend when pursuing commercial acting work. While commercial scripts are controlled by the agency, how the character is played is an opportunity for an actor to present the part in a way the producers and agency may not have originally envisioned it. Improv classes or a commercial acting class with an improv component is a great way to prepare for this kind of audition.

Character development for commercial work may seem like it should be easier. Not true. There is far less time, often fewer words at your disposal to connect with an audience. Time limits and limits of camera framing require that you be brilliant in a very short period of time and within limited visual parameters.

Commercial acting is it’s own art form and is deceptively more complex than you might think at first. Human nature is at the heart of any acting endeavor, and the true, authentic emotion being presented must be spot on or the entire effort is wasted.

By taking classes that focus on commercial acting techniques you can better prepare for this often lucrative form of acting while at the same time develop additional skills that will help gain opportunities it other arenas.

To learn more about the commercial acting class at the studio, you can visit the class page here: Commercial Acting Intensive